ARTICLES

Lucy Braham and William Jaggs: The murder that shook Harrow

One teacher’s son killed another teacher’s daughter, and Harrow School was shaken to its core. But the signs of an increasingly troubled mind had been apparent for many years

Monday evening in September 2006, and two middle-aged men – neighbours, colleagues, friends – are having a pint at their local pub. They had walked down West Street to the Castle after a dinner to mark the start of the new term at the school where they worked. Both men were eminent in their profession, senior members of staff at one of the world’s most prestigious private schools, Harrow.

More on my previously unsubstantiated claim that the writer-director Peter Kosminsky, creator of The Promise, is working on a drama about Nelson Mandela. I’ve now learnt that the project is a feature film, in development with Film 4, about the young Mandela. Kosminsky is currently at work on the script and, given the complaints about the anti-Jewish bias of The Promise, it is unlikely to be a standard bland portrait of the former South African president.

Latest Review

New York Times – J. M. Ledgard

Nelson Mandela was circumcised as a 16-year-old boy alongside a flowing river in the Eastern Cape. The ceremony was similar to those of other Bantu peoples. An elder moved through the line making ring-like cuts, and foreskins fell away. The boys could not so much as blink; it was a rite of passage that took you beyond pain. read full review